The head of the Social Security Agency (SSA) said on Friday that it would not “close the agency” after a federal judge supported a temporary restraining order issued against Elon Musk's government's cost-cutting panel.
SSA Chief Leland Dudek, president's appointee responsible for implementing Musk's cuts from government efficiency (DOGE), said on Friday the court made its position on its restraint order, saying the agency will continue to work.
“I have not closed the agency,” Dudek said in a statement. “SSA employees and their work will continue below [temporary restraining order]. ”
Dudek shows that he is not the one who runs the show at SSA, but rather follows the order.
“I am receiving decisions made without my opinion. I have to make those decisions come true,” Dudek said in a note from the meeting he took with his legal aide. reported by Washington Post at the beginning of March.
Dudek described the Doge team calling the shot at Social Security “an outsider unfamiliar with the nuances of the SSA program,” but he and his colleagues said, “we have to let them see what's going on with SSA,” according to conference notes obtained by the post.
On Thursday, US District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander released his opinion saying the Doge team is engaged in “fishing expeditions” at SSA and does not offer “even a single reason.”
“The defendant, who has so-called experts on the Doge team, has never identified or articulated even a single reason why the DOGE team requires unlimited access to the entire SSA's system of records.
She said the restraining order against Doge would “be useful in the public interest.”
Doge runs the federal government roughly, significantly reducing institutions such as the US International Development Agency, and accessing access programs to a variety of programs, including the Treasury's International Payment System and the IRS.
SSA plans to close dozens of offices this year this year as part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the size of the federal government, according to multiple media reports.
Tens of millions of Americans have benefited from retirement from SSA and disability, according to agency figures. In 2023, 72 million people fell into some form of social security.
